


Zeitlichkeit

by Promachos (Patroie)



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29819124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patroie/pseuds/Promachos
Summary: Most days David no longer remembered who Thomas was.And it was fair, given that Thomas barely recognised himself when he looked in the mirror these days.-Not all wizards grow young again
Relationships: David Mellenby/Thomas Nightingale
Kudos: 8





	Zeitlichkeit

Most days David no longer remembered who Thomas was.

And it was fair, given that Thomas barely recognised himself when he looked in the mirror these days. He looked as if he was in his forties again, but better fed and healthier than he had ever been during that period.

Time had, on the other hand, not been as kind to David. Far from it.

The sun was shining down on them when he helped David walk down the front stairs. Abdul Haqq Walid, the young Scottish doctor he had met a few years prior, had advised that he take David on a walk around Russell Square as often as he could, and Thomas had obliged. He kept a firm grip on David´s arm as they slowly descended the stairs, and made sure that David´s other hand was on the railing, the cane David no longer only used because of his bad leg - which had been badly injured twice during the war and had never really healed - pinned between Thomas´ arm and his chest. The dog, Newton - Thomas had named him so in the vain hope that David would be able to remember it, but most days David seemed astonished that they had a dog at all, as if he had forgotten Hesperus and Monty altogether - following them, tail wagging eagerly.

He wondered for how much longer they would be able to have David live at the Folly with them. The month before he had gone into his lab, late at night when both Thomas and Molly had been asleep, and nearly set the house on fire with an experiment gone wrong. Because of a mistake he would have never made thirty years ago. They had locked the door, but even now David was resourceful and smart. That he hadn´t fallen on the stairs on his way up was miracle enough.

Several years ago now they had moved David into one of the rooms on the ground floor, repurposed as a bedroom, so David wouldn´t have to take the stairs every day anymore - at all if Thomas and Molly had anything to say about it - but he still wandered around the Folly at random intervals, sometimes appearing in the door to Thomas´ bedroom, lingering there for some time before he disappeared again. There was no way to stop him short of locking him in his room at night, and Thomas would never resort to such drastic measures, not when it came to David. Molly wouldn´t allow him to do it in any case, and David would still be able to free himself if he really wanted to. It was hard to restrain a practitioner, short of blocking his magic or killing him. Few of the chaps had been allowed to age well.

But out of all the chaps, watching David grow old war by far the worst experience, and one he couldn't simply ignore. With the others he had - reluctantly - severed almost all ties, and even the most stubborn of them had stopped sending him letters after nearly a decade of not receiving any answers. It was wrong, and he knew it, but seeing them old and frail - seeing _David_ old and frail - while he himself was not, was perhaps stronger and healthier than he had ever been before, was too much for him to take. He couldn't face the truth of the situation and remain as level headed and unfazed as the chaps had always experienced, as they were still expecting him to be. With David he knew how to be vulnerable, and he was the only one - except Molly, but she had always been different - still alive Thomas had ever allowed himself to be human around. But it was not as if David would even be able to recall that.

David and he settled on one of the benches, Newton settling down at their feet, resting his head on his paws, tail moving lazily.

“Look, Thomas! A yew”

“Yes. Beautiful, Davey, isn´t it?” David nodded, absent mindedly, eyes now fixed on a man walking his dog. His mind had never lingered on one topic for long, unless it was his research of course, his mind so much faster than normal conversation was able to keep up with. Always thinking, building up theories and debunking them, in the time it took Thomas to even piece together what he was talking about. Brilliant, so brilliant. But now his absent-mindedness was not because of his intelligence, far from it.

Sometimes, rarely, David still pointed out trees to Thomas. The same one, granted, again and again, but it was nevertheless a thought Thomas appreciated and treasured, a sign that David remembered some parts of the life they had spent together, a lifetime ago. Sometimes it felt as if they were no longer the people they had been when they had spent time in David's run down little flat in Cambridge, no longer the boys who had plotted to set their teacher's notes on fire during class.

With David it was more obvious.

He was old now, so old. The hair that had always been light was now completely white, making David look even more like an eccentric scientist than ever before, with his colourless curls sticking up all over the place, and age had made him thinner, impossibly thin, fragile, as if he could break at any moment. He had long ago stopped dressing in suits, forgoing them for warm, comfortable sweaters that were older than the war and far too large on him now, but no matter what Molly did, at the end David would always emerge victorious.

It was endearing, as well as heartbreaking, to see him like this, and Thomas wished that he would have been able to grow older with David in the proper sense of the word. Not whatever this perverted state of being was.

After all that he had done, after all that he had been through, didn't he deserve to grow old with the person he loved? To grow frail together, to experience aches and pains together? To lose memories and reality together? To be seen as perhaps just that? An old couple growing old together, facing the eclipse of their lives together?

Instead Thomas was mistaken for David´s son on a regular basis. One afternoon, not to long ago, when he had taken David to St. James Park so he could feed the ducks at the pond there a woman had commented that his father seemed rather lovely, and it had taken a while for Thomas to realise that she was referring to David - His own father had been dead for three decades, and Thomas hadn't spoken to him in four. The only regret he could truly feel about his father´s death was that Thomas hadn't told him the truth before he had passed. The truth about himself, about his preferences, about David. But it would have been stupid at the time. Impossibly so. Homosexuality hadn't been legalised for long now, and his father had died thirteen years before that - and yes, age had possibly wiped away the obvious differences in feature he and David possessed. Had they been the same age no one would have ever assumed that they were in any way related. But would the young woman have told him that his partner seemed to be lovely? Would she have assumed the true nature of their relationship? If she had known would she have sat there, with him on that bench, watching David for several minutes? Or would she have been disgusted, turning away from him?

He would never know. There were a lot of questions to which he would never know the answer.

Thomas didn't know how long he sat there with David, on the bench, wrapped up in his own head, while David fed the birds that had gathered around. Eventually the sky turned dark and cloudy, and next to him David shivered. It was time to head back home.

He stood, reaching out for David's arm to help him stand, but David ripped it away in a jerky motion. When he looked up at Thomas his eyes were glazed over. “You can't do that, Thomas. We´re not alone!”

“No, Davey, we don´t need to hide anymore. It´s alright. We´re safe.”

It hurt more, somehow, when David´s memories brought him back to the war, to when they had been younger, when the world had been a more cruel place. Cruel to them and everyone like them. Thomas couldn't fault him, after all both he and Molly looked like they had done during that time at least on first glance, but the scared and haunted look that would always cross David´s eyes drove a stake into Thomas´ heart and twisted it around. Ettersberg and the weeks that had followed were the worst.

He was jealous of the younger generation, a generation that had grown up never experiencing what total war meant, who hadn´t send their men off to fight in a war that had no meaning. Was jealous that such a thing had not been possible for him and his loved ones, that he had lived through two world wars, that he had lost so many people when the very thought was foreign to those who had been born since Thomas' life had ended.

At times he reprimanded himself for that jealousy. It had been what they had been fighting for after all. Peace. Safety. Happiness. But he couldn't help but wish that he had had the same in his life.

“Do you trust me?” He asked, and David nodded.

So Thomas took one of the fragile, weak hands into his own, and led him back home.

...

He awoke later that night to movement in his doorway, quite rustling of fabric, shallow breaths.

Conjuring up a werelight he recognised David's silhouette, hair ruffled from sleep and his eyes red.

“Da-David?”

“Can I stay here tonight? With you?” It was an innocent question, phrased as if David's entire life depended on the answer. He had dreamt of the war, there was no doubt about it in Thomas' mind.

“Of _course_ ”

David crossed the room with only a few, large strides, and slipped into the bed, like he had wanted to do so for a long, long time. Arms, no longer strong and soft, but now thin and stiff, wrapped around him, both of them easily settling back into a routine that had broken off four decades before.

It felt strange, being held like this again. As if past and present were somehow merging together into one.

David wouldn´t remember when he woke up. He would be back to the shell he was normally, would have forgotten who Thomas was, beyond him being the person that cared for David.

This had to be enough for Thomas, occasional reminders that David was not already dead, that neither of them were.

It had to be enough.


End file.
